Education, From The Capitol To The Classroom

Stories about students: How does education policy affect the way students learn and grow? Can schools meet their needs as they balance ramped-up testing with personal changes and busy schedules? And are students who need help getting it?

Stories about educators: How are those responsible for implementing education policy in schools − from classroom teachers, to district administrators, to school board members − affected by changes at the top? And how well do they meet their challenge of reaching students with varying abilities and needs?

Stories about school assessment: With an increased push for 'accountability' in schools, what can test scores tell us about teacher effectiveness and student learning − and what can't they tell us? What does the data say about how schools at all levels are performing?

Stories about government influence: Who are the people and groups most instrumental in crafting education policy? What are their priorities and agendas? And how do they work together when they disagree?

Stories about money: How do local, state, and federal governments pay to support the education policies they craft? How do direct costs of going to school − from textbooks to tuition − hit a parent or student's bottom line? And how do changing budgets and funding formulas affect learning and teaching?

'IREAD, You Read...' or, 'Indiana's Statewide Reading Test'

Background

Beginning in March 2012, state education officials began administering a 40-question, 72-minute reading skills exam — the IREAD-3 — to all Indiana third graders. This test is the principal tool officials are using to implement a statewide policy emphasizing the importance of developing reading skills in the early grades.

Every third grader has two chances to pass the high-stakes exam. Students who don’t pass on their first try in March will be given the chance to pass a retake in June or July after a period of intensive remediation.

Third graders who don’t pass after two attempts will have to retake third grade versions of the ISTEP and IREAD exams the following school year, which state officials say will likely lead to them being held back from entering fourth grade.

The exam originated in school finance language tucked into House Enrolled Act 1367 in 2010. The Indiana General Assembly unanimously passed the measure, which called on state education officials to craft robust reading standards for Indiana students. The measure called for creating a means for the state to make “determinant evaluations” of whether students are meeting the new standards.

State Senators Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, and Earline Rogers, D-Gary; along with Representatives Greg Porter, D-Indianapolis, and Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis settled on language calling for holding students back “as a last resort.” It also, though, was crafted to emphasize the importance of developing reading skills by third grade — at which point students transition from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn.’

The executive branch decides how legislative actions get put into practice. In this case, the law empowered the State Board of Education — an executive panel, chaired by state superintendent Tony Bennett, whose members are gubernatorially-appointed — to decide how to implement the law. Here’s the key portion of the rule they adopted:

Beginning with the 2012–2013 school year, retention of a student in grade 3 if the student does not achieve a passing score on the IREAD-3 assessment during the previous school year or during a subsequent attempt at passing IREAD-3.

Many educators dispute that struggling students will do any better getting back up to speed in a third grade classroom than in a fourth grade classroom. Retention doesn’t work and studies prove it, they say. But supporters of the state’s third grade reading policy say other research shows students who leave third grade behind in reading likely won’t ever catch up and are much more likely to drop out.

June 17, 2016

The rate of third graders passing IREAD-3 on their first try dropped slightly.

May 8, 2015

The number of students passing the state’s third grade reading assessment, the IREAD-3, dropped to 84 percent from last year’s passing rate of 86 percent. This is a preliminary rate, as students who failed can retake the test this summer. The test has been administered since 2012, and if students don’t pass they retake third grade versions […]

If a third grader fails the IREAD-3, it is up to individual districts to decide how to remediate the student before fourth grade.

September 4, 2013

91.1 percent of Indiana students passed a high-stakes reading skills test this year, either on their first try in March or during a retake over the summer, state officials announced Wednesday. More on that here. We’ve made a map showing every Indiana school district’s final IREAD-3 pass rate. Take a look. We’ve also made sortable […]

This table shows the percentage of Indiana third graders in each school who passed the IREAD-3 exam in 2013, either in March or after a retake over the summer. Find Indiana school corporations’ pass rates here, in this map and sortable table. 91.1 percent of Indiana third graders passed the exam in 2013. In the average school, 91.9 […]

July 2, 2013

“Here’s a bit of data that confirms what we already suspect,” Jill Barshay writes at The Hechinger Report, pointing to federal statistics showing fewer than one in five 17-year-olds report reading on their own time daily. While daily reading among teens have slipped significantly in the past three decades, 9-year-olds are reading as much as ever […]